Two or three people who trust each other become a churning, learning machine (Just look at the remarkable learning partnership between Larry Page, Sergey Brin and their Google CEO, Eric Schmidt).

But trust takes time and, more than time, intentional, generous, respect. Three thoughts about that…

• Don’t compete. Listen until your partner is finished talking. If you sense she’s going nowhere, interrupt politely with a clarifying question. Listen to understand, not to win points.
• Say “I don’t get it,” instead of “That’s ridiculous,” or even “I disagree.” Who knows, once you get what your partner is saying, it may not be ridiculous at all and you may agree entirely. Then again, it may be your partner is thinking out loud—which is not a bad thing in a learning partnership.
• You know things are going well when you can agree to think out loud (and agree to acknowledge that’s what you’re doing). Sometimes we refine our thinking by putting it into words and letting the words fly. It’s OK to say, “You know, now that I hear myself saying that out loud, I’m not sure that’s exactly what I mean at all. Lemme think about that some more…” The agreement to think out loud is a sure sign of building trust.